The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-01-14
The SAME ROAD.

Intemperance Brings Disaster to Rich and
Poor Alike, Although the Surroundings
of the Formers Haunts of Vice Are
Luxurious
The worst effects of the saloon are
seen in connection with the poor, but
it does not follow that the rest of the
community escape. On the contrary.
some of the most startling proofs of
the power of this agency for evil may
be found in the experience of what
may be termed our well-to-do classes.
The evidence attainable here is start
ling, because the contrast between the
warning conditions is so strong. All
over the land there are mothers, pure
of heart and mind, trained in Christian
faith and virtues, full of sweet and
tender and exalted hopes for their
boys. These loving, innocent, pious
women rear their children to the best
of their ability, Gin the nurture and adj
monition of the Lord" They endeavor
to keep the young souls stainless until
character is formed. They agonize
over every slip and stumble on the
part of the children. They seek
with all the earnestness of their nature,
aided by all the strength devotion can
supply, to establish the feet of their
little ones firmly. What success do
they attainP Among the convention
alities which serve only to disguise
barbarous, course or disgusting habits
sand tendencies, perhaps there is not
one more thoroughly mischievous,
ignoble and degrading than that which
holds it to be a proof of manhood and
independence to cast off the mothers
leading-strings," and to signalize the
alleged acknowledgements by the convivi-
atty which consists in getting drunk. 1t
has been the base custom to speak
of this kind of thing as natural and
inevitable reaction from the we'll
meant but enervating sentimentalism
of the maternal solicitude. But there
is no validity in this pretense. The
reaction spoked of is simply that from
virtue to vice. 1t is the abandonment
of right for wrong. It is the substitu-
ton of that which is unmanly vile,
debasing, for that which is truly manly,
honorable and elevating.
Yet society witnesses the introduce
ton of adolescence to the saloon with
an indulgent smile. The boys at col
lege are taught (not, be it understood,
in the curriculum) that it is rather
fine thing to drink, and that the effects
of debauch, though decidedly dis
agreeable, are in no way cause for
shame. In other circles, where boys
enter business earlier, dissipation is
considered an evidence of special spirit.
This trait is so general that humorists
have often made use of it to point some
merry tale, and generations have
laughed unrestrainedly over the bib
ulous proclivities whose indulgence for
a comparatively short period in youth
assures physical and mental wreck.
The boy leaves his home, cuts loose
from his wise and tender mother, is
plunged into crowd of young men
whose chief ambition seems to
be to emulate the worst vices
of their seniors. He is taken to
the saloon, which is carefully prepared
for the educated and refined visitor.
Not for him the naked ugliness of the
tenement-house gin-shop, or the water
front den. An aesthetic taste has been
invoked to beautify the spacious rooms.
Color in its most attractive application
floods the place from variegated lamp
shades, frescoed ceilings, tassellated
pavements, gilded bars and voluptuous
paintings. All that luxury can effect
is done to heighten the sense of physical
comfort. The service is swift, supple,
efficient. The wines and liquors are
free from adulteration and of sterling
brands. An air of calm enjoyment
pervades the saloon. The young man
is quite carried away by all this SPLEEN
dor and luxury. He takes it to him
self, as it was intended that he should
do. He begins to be proud of his par
ticipation in so magnificent a specta-
Gle. He yields without a pause or
thought to the solicitations of his com
panions.
What is it that he is doing? Merely
what all the world does, no doubt one
reply will be. But if all the world has
so far forgotten itself as to see no harm
in self-degradation it is time the truth
was told. The boy may not get drunk at
the saloon; there are plenty of young
men who can drink moderately, no
doubt. But whether he drinks little
or much, he can not escape contamina-
ton if he frequents place all the as
sociations of, all the emanations from,
which are debasing and corrupting.
The most callous cynic will not dare to
assert that young men ever learn good
in the saloon. Every man of the world
knows that they learn evil there album
dainty. 1t is the focus and distributing
point of sensuality as well as of intern
perance. Its conversation is impure.
Its rights are provocative. Its infu-
ences are demoralizing. 1t is the an
tipodes of the home presided over by
the pure an& pious mother 1t is the
filthy pool into which society filings its
young men, under the plea of harden
ing them.
In this foul atmosphere they acquire
the tone of a new world; they fit on
their incipient vices; they accustom
themselves to low views of many
things. The frequenter of the saloon
can not escape infection, and it is here
that the ideas are absorbed which, in
spite of the natural chiyalry of Ameri-